One Hundred Names

  Shortly after they’d set off Kitty left Steve’s side and went over to Eva. ‘Mind if I join you?’

  ‘Sure.’ Eva gave her a quick smile, but one that didn’t reach her eyes.

  ‘Congratulations, you should be really proud about how today went. The gift for Seamus was so beautiful, you even managed to touch an old cynic like me,’ Kitty joked.

  ‘Hmm? Oh, yes, that was great. A success,’ she smiled.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Me? Yes, of course, why?’ She gave that big pretty smile that did manage to reach her eyes but which Kitty was no longer believing.

  ‘Because you look like you’ve seen a ghost and you seem … down. Did something happen with George?’

  ‘You’re ever the romantic, aren’t you?’ Eva smiled. ‘Archie and Regina, Ambrose and Eugene, Mary-Rose and Sam, Molly and Edward – has this just been one big ploy to get everyone together?’

  Kitty laughed. ‘No, not at all. They all did that by themselves, I assure you, though Sam and Mary-Rose is a work in progress, I think.’ They both looked to the two best friends lost in deep serious conversation. ‘I think you could give them a gift to help move that along.’

  Eva smiled and fingered the bag in her hand. She looked at Kitty and then sighed. ‘God, you’re impossible.’

  Kitty laughed. ‘Good.’

  ‘George gave me a gift.’

  ‘Oh? A gift for the giver – I wouldn’t be brave enough to pull that one off.’

  ‘This trip has been one of the best, you know,’ she said, and Kitty believed her.

  ‘Thank you. What did he give you?’

  ‘A box.’ She opened the bag and retrieved a small Chinese lacquered box. Her eyes filled just looking at it.

  ‘I take it that box means something to you.’

  ‘Yes.’ She wiped her eyes before her tears fell. ‘He remembered me telling him about a gift that I’d received, a gift that meant something to me. And he found quite the imitation.’

  ‘Has anyone ever given you something that’s moved you so much?’

  ‘Not really,’ she said, and the tears fell steadily now. ‘Not since I received the original version.’

  Aha, she was getting somewhere.

  ‘So you weren’t exactly telling the truth about the My Little Pony being the best gift you’d ever received,’ Kitty said gently.

  Eva laughed and shook her head. ‘Sorry. But I think we both knew that.’ She sniffed and looked at her intently. ‘You can’t write all of this, Kitty, because there are other people involved.’

  Kitty nodded. ‘You have my word.’

  ‘Just write whatever you have to write for it to mean something.’

  Kitty completely understood.

  ‘It was Christmas Day and my mother and I were waiting. The food was ready on the table, I can remember the smell, it was so delicious. My mother insisted on traditional Christmas meals. Her traditional meals. My father is from Shanghai. He owns a Chinese takeaway in Galway. Wu’s Chinese Takeaway. He was two hours late and, well, we were hungry and I remember my mother looking at me and not saying it out loud, but almost asking me what do I think we should do. You have to be a certain way with my mother, or at least I had to be then. I couldn’t tell her exactly what I thought because then she would do the opposite. It was like reverse psychology: you had to make her think it was her decision and therefore the right one. So she started to cut into the turkey and it smelled so good, even though it was overcooked and had been sitting there too long. I spooned the vegetables onto my plate and I couldn’t wait, I just couldn’t wait, I had to eat it. I had taken the first mouthful when I heard the key in the door and I wanted to just die. I couldn’t swallow it, I couldn’t spit it out. Mother was still carving the turkey for her plate. My dad walked in – I could smell him before I saw him – and he saw us starting dinner without him, which made him angry.

  ‘“Just in time,” I remember my mom saying perkily. Too perkily. He knew that we weren’t going to wait for him. So he left the dining room. He trampled on all of the presents, smashed a china doll that was for me, pulled down the Christmas tree, pulled down the lights from the ceiling so that they crashed on to the dining table, scratching the beautiful wood. He cleared every surface, the fine china from the display cupboard, everything was in pieces.’

  She swallowed.

  ‘Then he went at my mother. Not for the first time either. She still had the carving knife in her hand. It ended up in her arm.’

  ‘Eva,’ Kitty breathed, ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘I’m not telling you this so you’ll be sorry.’ Eva looked at Kitty. ‘You want to understand, I’m trying to help you to understand.’

  Kitty nodded.

  ‘I ended up across the road with an old neighbour. We sat in front of her television for four hours before my aunt came to take me home. She only had black-and-white TV and all I remember watching is I Love Lucy over and over again. I swear I can’t watch that woman to this day, being so stupid and everybody laughing every time she tripped or fell, or did something ridiculous, and all the time my head was rerunning everything that had happened. The old woman, I can’t even remember her name, didn’t say one word to me for the whole time. She gave me milk and a plate of biscuits and she sat in an armchair beside me and we watched the television in silence. She didn’t even laugh, which made the show seem even more pathetic. But before I left, she gave me a gift. It was a small box, a Chinese lacquered box, with a lock and key. She said it was for all my secrets, that every little girl needed a box for all her secrets. I don’t know why but it was the most perfect, perfect thing that anybody had ever given me. It was so appropriate. She hadn’t said one word about what had happened but she seemed to encompass everything in this one gift.’

  ‘So that’s the gift that started you thinking the way you do, that made you want to help people by giving the perfect thing.’

  ‘Yes.’ Eva ran her fingers over the box George had given her.

  ‘Did you tell George that story?’

  ‘No, I just told him about the box. I’ve never told anyone about it. I lost it, though, years ago, when we were moving house.’

  ‘He must have known it was important to you.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said curiously.

  ‘Eva, do you mind me asking, how old were you when … when you received the box?’

  ‘Five,’ she said quietly, and her eyes filled again.

  Kitty made a mental note in her mind.

  Name Number Three: Eva Wu

  Story Title: Pandora’s Box

  ‘But anyway,’ Eva cleared her throat, her face almost immediately lost the emotion and her beautiful mask was back on, ‘I have a present for you.’

  ‘For me? Eva, you didn’t have to do that. Don’t tell me it’s the old men from the wedding,’ she joked, looking around.

  Eva laughed. ‘It’s really very small. I wasn’t looking for something, I just came across it, and bearing in mind what you’ve been through lately, it reminded me of you.’ She reached into her small bag and retrieved a potted plant. It didn’t make any sense to Kitty at all until she read the label at the side.

  ‘Grow your own luck,’ Kitty read aloud, and started laughing. It was a pot filled with soil with a small pouch of shamrock seeds attached.

  Eva smiled. ‘I hope it works.’

  ‘I hope so too.’ Kitty swallowed hard, thinking of the road ahead of her. ‘Thank you, Eva.’

  ‘I know someone who can help you plant it, anyway,’ Eva added, raising her eyebrows, and the two girls laughed.

  Raised voices coming from the front of the bus averted everyone’s attention. Molly and Edward were at each other’s throats again about a turn that Molly should or should not have taken.

  ‘Oh shit,’ Molly said loudly, looking in her rearview mirror.

  Everyone turned round to see that Molly’s comment had been entirely justified. Coming up the hard shoulder of the motorway was a garda car.

&
nbsp; ‘Maybe it’s not for me,’ Molly said.

  ‘Of course it’s for you,’ Edward snapped. ‘Did you see what you just did?’

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ she hissed back.

  ‘Well, slow down, will you?’ he said. ‘They’re getting you to pull in.’

  ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,’ Molly said to herself, slowing the bus and pulling in.

  The garda came round to Molly’s side of the bus.

  ‘You trying to kill someone back there?’ he asked.

  ‘No of course not,’ she said, her voice gentle. ‘I just got confused which way to go.’

  ‘Driver’s licence, please,’ he said, and Molly rooted in her handbag.

  Please let her have her driver’s licence, Kitty thought to herself, watching the clock. She had to get back to Dublin for her meeting with Pete. She had put it off for long enough, the feature was due to go to print on Monday, which meant she had only the weekend to write it, but not if it couldn’t be approved today. Pete would kill her if she didn’t make this evening. She couldn’t use the guilt he felt against him any longer; it was wearing off.

  The garda disappeared to check Molly’s licence and Edward was back to being Mr Nice Guy with an anxious-looking Molly.

  The officer returned five minutes later. ‘Where’s this vehicle from?’

  ‘St Margaret’s Nursing Home, in Oldtown, Dublin,’ she said, her voice like a child’s. ‘I work there. We’re going back there now.’

  ‘Open up the door, will you?’

  She pulled the lever, not seeming so excited by the idea now, and he climbed on board and took a look at everyone. Everybody was silent.

  ‘Doesn’t look like the regular nursing home clientele,’ he said.

  ‘Ah, yes, well, Birdie here is my patient. I was taking her and her friends on a trip for her birthday. We’re going back there now. We have to get the bus back for the Pink Ladies’ bridge evening so …’

  He looked at her long and hard. ‘This bus was reported stolen yesterday.’

  Molly’s face went white.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘You heard me. Know anything about that?’

  ‘No, I mean, yes, I mean, no, we borrowed it for a trip for my patient. We didn’t steal it. I mean, we’re going right back there now.’

  The garda stared at her a little longer in a tense silence.

  ‘Could you step out of the vehicle, please, Ms McGrath?’

  Molly let out a small squeak before Edward stood up to help her off the bus, whispering in her ear something that Kitty couldn’t hear.

  ‘Oh my God.’ Kitty looked at Steve wide-eyed.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ Steve said, unimpressed by the entire thing. ‘He’s obviously just trying to scare her. Obviously she didn’t steal the bus. Kitty, why are you looking at me like that? Tell me Molly didn’t steal this bus?’

  All Kitty could do was smile at him weakly. She and he had been doing so well.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Kitty and the rest of the gang, apart from Molly, waited in a café in Mallow town in Cork, while Molly was inside the garda station being questioned.

  ‘I’m not making this up, Pete,’ Kitty hissed down the phone. ‘Of course, I want to be at the meeting today, but I’m in Cork and there’s no way I can get there by six o’clock. What about tomorrow?’

  ‘No, Kitty. I’m not dragging everyone back in here on a Saturday. We’ve already wasted enough time waiting for your story and we don’t even know what that story is! This is ridiculous. Everything revolves around Constance’s story, everybody has been working their arses off to meet this deadline, and you are swanning around—’

  ‘Excuse me, I have put every single second I have into this story and you know it. Fine! I’ll find a way to get there on time.’ She hung up and bit her nails.

  Steve looked at her, eyebrows raised.

  ‘Pete’s a prick,’ she said simply. ‘If I don’t get there by six o’clock he’s pulling my story.’ She didn’t mean for everybody else to hear but unfortunately that’s what happened.

  ‘No, Kitty.’ Jedrek stood up. ‘We can’t let this happen. You must run the story. What can we do to help?’

  ‘Oh, Jedrek, thank you,’ she said, touched. ‘I appreciate you all caring for me so much but I just don’t know how to get to my meeting by six. If Molly doesn’t come out of there in the next five minutes there’s no way I can make it to the office.’

  ‘No offence, Kitty,’ Jedrek said seriously. ‘Of course we respect you and your duty to your editor and friend, and we know that your job is important to you, but we have put our lives in your hands. We have told you our private stories and given you the pen to write it. It is not just you who needs this story written, it is us. It is our story.’

  Kitty looked at Steve, who was looking back at her as if this was the most obvious thing in the world. The penny finally dropped: this wasn’t about her, this wasn’t merely about honouring Constance’s story and saving her own professional skin. This was their lives, their stories, and she owed these people. Feeling humbled, she snapped into action.

  Thirty minutes later, Molly had been freed from custody and they were on the road back to Dublin.

  ‘I don’t understand, Kitty, what did you say to them?’

  ‘I just got on the phone to the nursing home, to Bernadette.’

  ‘No, not Bernadette! She’ll fire me for sure,’ Molly moaned.

  ‘She won’t fire you,’ Kitty said confidently, ‘but she’ll probably make your life a living hell for a few months. I just explained the entire thing to her, what we had done and why, and told her to drop the charges and tell the guards to let you go. They’re using the local school bus for the Pink Ladies today instead, so we have time so can you please step on it and follow my directions?’

  ‘Why, where are we going?’ she asked, startled.

  ‘A little detour,’ Kitty said, biting her nails and watching the clock as it got dangerously close to 6 p.m.

  At six thirty, they pulled up outside Etcetera’s offices in the bus. Pete was close to calling the entire thing off but Kitty had phoned regularly en route and was insistent they could make it.

  ‘Okay, everybody, I promise this will be quick. Follow me, please.’

  ‘Good luck.’ Steve winked at her.

  Ready for another adventure, the party all climbed off the bus and followed her.

  Rebecca, the art director, was standing at the open door looking out anxiously.

  ‘Kitty, thank God,’ she said, when Kitty ran up the stairs. ‘He’s going insane in there. I don’t envy you right now.’ She pulled Kitty’s coat from her shoulders, and then looked at the team of people who followed after her, in shock. ‘Who are all these people, Kitty? Kitty …?’ she followed them all, wide-eyed.

  ‘Can you all just wait here a moment, please?’ Kitty said to them, took a deep breath and entered the meeting room. It smelled of coffee, sweat and anger. There was also a lot of frustration and irritation emanating from the pore of every person at the table and it was all directed at her.

  ‘Hi, everyone,’ she said, breathless. ‘I’m so sorry I’m late. You wouldn’t believe what I had to go through to get here.’

  They groaned and mumbled something about what they’d been through to get there too but Kitty hurried on, glad to see Bob was in attendance, which meant that Cheryl was no longer in her acting deputy editor role. Kitty looked from Pete to Cheryl and smiled sweetly. ‘Hi, guys, nice to see you again.’

  Cheryl reddened and looked away.

  ‘Two weeks ago I was given the task of writing Constance’s final piece. Something I was hugely honoured to do, and something I thought hard about because as we all know Constance was a true professional, a perfectionist, never accepted anything but the best, and I didn’t have a huge amount of faith in myself in delivering. I know many of you in this room felt the same and I understand why.’ She swallowed as there were a lot of shared looks to prove she was right. Nobody
believed she could pull this off. ‘But a lot has changed in two weeks, believe me.

  ‘All I had to go on with Constance’s story was one hundred names. That was it. No synopsis, no explanation, no outline, absolutely nothing but a random list of people that nobody had ever heard of. I had no way of contacting them, no way of knowing what the story was about, nothing at all. That’s why it has taken me so long to come to this meeting,’ she explained. She could see that few people had been let in on this fact. ‘It was left up to me to find a common link between these one hundred people and it was believed, I believed, that this is where the story lay. So far, I have met with six of those people.’

  Pete let out an exasperated sigh.

  Kitty turned to him. ‘Pete, there was no way in the world I was going to meet and speak with one hundred people within two weeks, people who had no idea that there was an intention for them to even be written about.’

  ‘Constance hadn’t contacted them?’ Rebecca asked.

  ‘No!’ Kitty laughed. ‘Constance didn’t even know who they were!’

  The others looked at each other in confusion.

  ‘It’s all so perfectly clear to me now,’ Kitty explained. ‘The last time I met with Constance she lectured me, as she always did, on the art of writing a good story. She told me that to seek the truth is not necessarily to go on a mission all guns blazing in order to reveal a lie, neither is it to be particularly ground-breaking – it is simply to get to the heart of what is real.

  ‘My job was not to uncover a secret or a lie or find something earth-shattering that one hundred people were hiding from me, it was simply to listen to their truths.

  ‘Constance’s idea was this,’ she paused. ‘It’s very simple. If you were to randomly select one hundred people from a phone directory, you would not only find a story, you would find one hundred stories, because everybody, every single person, has a story to tell. Every single ordinary person has an extraordinary story. We might all think that we are unremarkable, that our lives are boring, just because we aren’t doing ground-breaking things or making headlines or winning awards. But the truth is we all do something that is fascinating, that is brave, that is something we should be proud of. Every day people do things that are not celebrated. That is what we should be writing about. The unsung heroes, the people that don’t believe they are heroes at all because they are just doing what they believe they have to do in their lives.’